The Trail:

Lower Raw Deal is a short trail located in a wash in the Table Mesa area. There are bedrock cracks, and ledges to navigate.

Rating:

3.0

Runs:

Date: 1/12/2008 - with the Virtual Jeep Club

Suspension: Stock

Photos:

Turning on to the wash:

Waiting for our turn:

Traffic jam waiting to run the obstacles:

Some Jeeps on the main obstacles:

Still not our turn yet:

We're starting out at the main obstacles:

Through the first part looking back:

Coming up on the next part:

Posing on a rock:

Near the end of the main obstacles:

Parked waiting for the remainder of the Jeeps to come through:

Watching the remaining Jeeps come through:

Heading out:

Near the end:

Date: 1/9/2009

Suspension: TeraFlex 2.5" Spring Lift, stock tires

Photos:

So, we we out doing out benchmarking in the area and ran into a major obstacle - a gate blocking the way. Since we had to turn around and cut our benchmarking short, and since it was near lunch time, we figured we would zip though Raw Deal, eat lunch, and head home. Two hours later and after some minor carnage we made it to the parking lot to eat lunch. Here we are heading to the main obstacles:

Jane got a video of us approaching the obstacles. Here's the video.

Looking at the first obstacle. This entire portion of Raw Deal looks like it may just be mud and some rocks and boulders, but it is all solid (volcanic?) rock that has been eroded over time by the water. Anyway, how did we approach this last time???:

I don't know. Let's try this way. Here's a video. What was that pop???

Maybe this way??? Seems a bit high on the driver's side:

After re-adjusting and heading in a bit lower (and collecting some carnage) we decided to push on because as we remembered it was a "piece of cake" after this part:

Looks like it is a lined up, right???:

OK, we made it!!! Now heading to the the big waterfall, no problem, right?

Set to crawl over it:

We didn't crawl right over it, but after re-aligning and a little spinning, we made it over:

OK, now it's a piece of cake, right? Just head up and try to keep the passenger tires on the small ledge without falling into the crack, easy. Right?:

We didn't feel comfortable with that approach (even tough we think we did it that way - some how - last time). The ledge seemed too small, and if we slipped there really would be some wonderful carnage on the passenger side, so we opted to continue up through the wash. It appeared that there were three or four places to bail to the passenger side before hitting the final large obstacle. We're in uncharted (for us) territory now:

We couldn't get a good angle to bail, so after getting out the measuring tape and measuring the shelf width we decided the one inch of safety would be enough. Time for more prayer and we hit the shelf - don't let the Jeep slide into the crack on the driver's side, or run too high on the passenger's side and roll. In this picture we're just past the main danger (see pictures from 1/31/09 for more on this crack):

The back tire is just about to come off the shelf:

The back tire is off the shelf. Looks like we made it through the toughest part:

From another angle:

Driving off the last tough obstacle and up onto a small rock hill to approach the final obstacle of this portion of Raw Deal. Here's the video.

Coming down the hill. Here's the video. I like listening to the brakes.

Heading out down the wash. There were still some obstacles to navigate, but they seemed easy compared to the "main event". Here's the video.

Here's the "carnage". The bright white scrapes are from the rock where the paint got scraped off. Fortunately we have this new bumper - the old was bumper plastic and a few inches wider and would have been ripped off. :S

Date: 1/31/2009

Saw these pictures of someone who slipped into the crack:

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Last modified: December 21, 2009 06:54:36 PM